Rashmi and the Perfect Day
by weavingmaid
Summary: All Rashmi wants is for one day to go perfectly. But during a year where her best friend has abandoned her for cooler college friends, she's always fighting with her boyfriend, and her two other friends are crushing on the same boy, can it ever happen?
1. Chapter 1

**Author note:** I absolutely loved _Anna and the French Kiss_, but I found myself wondering about Rashmi. She and Anna didn't seem to be on the same wavelength, so there was always some tension between them—but I wanted to know more about her! So here's my attempt at getting inside this enigmatic character's head. I hope you enjoy! (she's turned out to be a little bitchier than I anticipated, haha)

1. Prologue

I'd say I'm a pretty confident person. And I've got a pretty great family, I'm a well adjusted middle child, I go to school in the middle of Paris, I have a gorgeous pet rabbit, a hot, artistic boyfriend, a great group of friends, stellar grades—life should be wonderful…shouldn't it?

Unfortunately, it's not. The hot boyfriend? I'm a year older than him, and we fight all the time over the fact that I'm leaving him behind when I graduate at the end of this year. And I have reason to believe that there's a girl in his art class who's harboring a secret crush on him. Not that I mind this—he is hot, after all—but he's _my _boyfriend, even if we fight all the time.

To add to the fun, my best friend Ellie has abandoned me to hang out with all the hotshot Parisian photography majors at Parsons Paris, and Meredith keeps mooning over St. Clair all the damn time. I feel for her, but honestly. He's just not that into her. And considering the fact that he's all over Anna, the new girl, I don't see that changing anytime soon. I wish I could say something to her, especially considering that she's the one that introduced Anna to all of us in the first place, but the damage is done already.

Oh yeah, and my nickname is fucking _Rash_. What a joke. I swear, being Indian American in a school full of white people, even in the middle of multicultural Paris, is not something I would wish on my worst enemy.

Oh well. Sometimes life's a bitch you just can't slap away.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Nod Note_**_: I'm so sorry I disappeared for so many months! I just got so busy and then I just wasn't in the mood to write. I've gotten back into the mode now, though! Hope you enjoy. :) _

I wake up to Sanjita screeching at me through my door.

"Rashmiiiii! Wake up! I need to talk to you!"

I glance at the clock and see it's 6 AM. Trust my baby sister to be the early bird in the family. I, however, am so not in the mood.

"Sanju, shut up. You're going to wake up Isis. And anyway, I don't feel like talking to you right now—I'm on four hours of sleep." I throw one of my pillows toward the door.

I can hear her kicking the wall. Has she really not grown out of that habit? She's fourteen!

"You're such a bitch! I can't believe you care more about your stupid rabbit than your younger sister!"

"Sanjita, we're not talking about this right now. Go back to your own dorm."

I worry about my little sister a lot, but she has always been someone who does what she wants—she's like me in that respect. Advice is mostly useless when it comes to her. My little brother, on the other hand, well, he's a bit more vulnerable. If he'd been the one to come knock on my door at 6 in the morning, I would have answered. But Sanjita? No way in hell.

So when she tries to slam her foot into the door again, I pull out my iPod and scroll to one of my favorite Schuyler Fisk songs to drown out her voice, and slowly drift back to sleep. Next thing I know, it's 8:30—time for breakfast.

My phone starts buzzing just as I finish brushing my teeth. It's Josh's daily "Good Morning" text with a picture of a weird doodle he's drawn, which never fails to make me laugh. It's just one of our things, and usually I find it reassuring, but not even his text can keep me from remembering that this year is going to be weird. Ellie's not here anymore, and I don't know what that means for me.

Josh is great, he really is. He's caring and affectionate and a great kisser, but he's not my best friend. I'm not his best friend either—that spot goes to St. Clair. I try not to think about the fact that at the end of the year, he's going to go through what I'm going through now, except with three people instead of just one, and I don't know what that's going to mean for us.

But that's not something I want to think about right now, so I focus on finding Meredith in the cafeteria as I head down the stairs. She was acting kind of weird last night, talking about some new girl next door who doesn't speak French and who's afraid to leave her room.

I don't know about Mer, but I don't understand why anyone would come to study in France who doesn't at least know a little bit of French, but maybe that's just me. There are a lot of people here who were only sent because their parents want to be able to say their child goes to school abroad. That's what Senator Wasserstein wants for Josh. He's always been more concerned about appearances than how well his son is actually doing in school.

By the time I spot Mer and Josh waving at me from the table, I'm already beginning to feel annoyed. Honestly, I don't think I'm really in the mood to meet this new girl.


End file.
